Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Pitchfork Media | (0.0/10) |
| Vista Records | |
| Metal Nightfall | |
| TrueMetal | (70/100) |
When Kiss premiered Music from "The Elder" for their management and record company in October 1981, the reaction was a mixture of confusion and resentment. Business manager Howard Marks refused to allow his company's name to appear in the liner notes. Fan reaction to the album was equally harsh, while critical reaction was comparably positive. But while reviews like the one printed by Rolling Stone were much kinder than past reviews, the album quickly disappeared from the charts by February, 1982. Q magazine ranked Music From "The Elder" 44th in their list of The 50 Worst Albums Ever. The same magazine ranked the album 6th in their list of 15 Albums Where Great Rock Acts Lost the Plot.
Although budgets were prepared for a tour, none was ever undertaken. The only public appearances the band made in conjunction with the album were a January 15, 1982 appearance on the late-night variety show Fridays (they performed "A World Without Heroes", "I" and "The Oath"), Solid Gold ("A World Without Heroes" and "I"), and a January 28 lip synched performance of "I" from Studio 54, broadcast via satellite to the Sanremo Festival in Italy. Frehley was absent for the Studio 54 appearance, so the group performed as a trio.
Most participants in the album's recording admit that it was a major misstep for Kiss. Ezrin, despite his recent success with the even more ambitious Wall album, admitted that his judgments concerning Music from "The Elder" were clouded due in large part to a cocaine addiction at the time. Stanley and Simmons admit that they were "delusional" concerning the project, while Frehley has stated that he felt that it wasn't a good idea to begin with.
Read more about this topic: Music From "The Elder"
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